


Dust

by reiley



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Episode: s02e13 Exit Wounds, Ficlet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 19:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/690431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reiley/pseuds/reiley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quiet morning in bed, Jack and Ianto talk and don’t talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dust

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted 10/03/09

* * *

Wan morning light is seeping around the edges of the curtain - a thick, sturdy swatch of dark canvas tacked up over the window - and it’s the soft, muddled sort of light on a grey, soggy morning in Cardiff. Outside, the sun will be fighting its way through the clouds, but the room is still mostly pitch black. Dark enough that Jack should still be asleep.

Absently, he rubs at his shin and elbows Ianto’s side.

Breath hitches, snuffles through Ianto’s nose, as he rolls over to face Jack. “Sorry,” he says, voice low and gravelly from sleep. “I was dreaming… about…”

“Lisa.” The name had been mumbled at least twice.

“Yeah.” Ianto’s forehead rubs over Jack’s shoulder in a small nod.

“Good or bad?” Jack asks, tipping his face down into Ianto’s hair, voice low to match.

“Good. Yeah, good.” Ianto stretches - Jack can feel him in the dark - pulling one arm up to pillow his head, put his face even with Jack’s. “We were in her flat. Hers, not ours. And the hoover was an alien, doing all the tidying up on its own, but it was doing other stuff hoovers just shouldn’t do.”

Jack chuckles.

“Not like that.” Ianto frowns, lightly shoving at Jack’s hip under the covers, the body part nearest his hand. “It was doing the dishes, the laundry… other things. Lisa was laughing at me, because there was nothing left for me to clean up.”

“Sounds like a good one.” Jack shifts onto his side, reaching his hand out to run his fingertips up Ianto’s arm, drawing the blanket back up over his bare shoulder then sliding his hand back down the center of Ianto’s spine.

“Sometimes I forget,” Ianto murmurs, moving closer, his breath tickling over Jack’s collarbones. “On the mornings you aren’t here, it’s like-” He tilts his head back, face to the ceiling, exposing his throat. “Only for a moment and I forget. I’m back in London, in our flat, and Lisa would be up before me. She’d always be dressed and ready to go before I’d even stumbled out of bed. Sometimes she’d pass by from the bathroom and throw her wet towel at me to wake me up and I just… forget. I’m back there until I open my eyes and it’s gone.”

“And you…” Jack keeps his voice soft, barely audible in the close quiet. “You wish there were more moments like that, more time before you wake up and remember.”

“No. I hate those moments.” Ianto rolls away onto his back, bringing both arms up behind his head, and Jack’s hand slides over Ianto’s belly before he draws it back. “Because I _do_ remember, I always remember and-” His jaw twitches in that way Jack knows means he’s thinking and stopping himself from saying it aloud.

Twisting slightly, Jack plants his elbow on the pillow next to Ianto’s head and rests his chin in his hand. He gazes down at Ianto’s face, his closed eyes and pursed lips.

“Remembering doesn’t hurt the way it used to,” Ianto says, a moment later. “And then that hurts. It’s just like when my father died. It was-” his eyelids flick open to glance at Jack, then closed again, “he was sick for so long, then when he finally…” Though his voice is still rough, quiet, he sounds infinitely more awake now than just a few moments ago. “It was… relief, like I’d just been waiting for it to happen so that I could move on already. I left as soon as I could, because I couldn’t stand to look at my sister and feel that way. I couldn’t see her every day, knowing that she knew…”

Ianto takes a deep breath and Jack pretends it doesn’t sound at all ragged. He leans down and presses his lips to Ianto’s chest, quick and dry.

“And now I barely see her, talk to her maybe once a month, if that. I forget. It was a week, Jack. A _week_ after the bombings before I remembered to call her to see that she was OK. Her, the kids, everyone else. I didn’t remember; I wasn’t even thinking about them at all.”

Jack nods. “I wasn’t thinking of… the people I should have been thinking of. My- the people I care about.” _She’s older than him,_ Jack thinks, _and Ianto has his own family to worry about._ “You and Gwen. I wasn’t, either.”

“That’s understandable, Jack. You had-”

“Is it?” He really doesn’t think so, but, “Maybe. And if it’s understandable for me then it’s understandable for you.”

“It’ll happen again. With Tosh and Owen. I’ll forget.” And this time, Ianto’s voice hitches noticeably.

He leans down and brushes his lips over the corner of Ianto’s mouth, murmuring against his jaw, “Don’t worry, I’ll remember. I can remember for both of us.”

Ianto makes a soft sound, not a laugh or sob, but maybe something in between, as if he doesn’t believe Jack or that it’s not enough. He pushes Jack’s face away when their mouths come in contact again, kisses Jack’s neck, instead, before turning over onto his other side, facing away.

“Jack? I’m sorry. About earlier, at the hub.”

He presses his grin into the nape of Ianto’s neck. “I know. It’s OK. Yelling at me when I’m being an ass is your job.”

“I always thought that was Gwen’s job.”

“No, I think she just enjoys it more.”

Jack feels more than hears Ianto laugh as he reaches his hand back to snag Jack’s fingers. “And now it’s your turn to say sorry.”

“I already told you I was sorry.”

“Jack. A blowjob is not an apology.”

Jack laughs, too loud in the stillness of the morning. He wraps his arm around Ianto and tugs him back, pressed full-body together.

“Jack?” 

“Hmm?”

“Are there alien vacuum cleaners?”

“Sure. There’s dust in space.”

“Space dust,” Ianto mumbles, already half asleep.

“Yep.” He kisses Ianto’s shoulder; breathes deep. “Space dust.”

* * *


End file.
